Spanish Wines

Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

One of the more compelling wine stories of recent decades has been Spain’s almost miraculous evolution from a producer of oceans of mediocre commercial wine into a source of some of the most exciting, original and sought-after wines in the world.

Change was a long time coming. Grapes first appeared in Spain around 1100 B.C., probably grown by Phoenicians near what is now Cádiz. The arrival of the non-drinking Moors in the eighth century A.D. put a damper on the wine trade that lasted 700 years. Not until the 1490s, with the expulsion of the Moors, did business begin to pick up again. Spanish explorers planted Spanish vines throughout the New World, but only in the 19th century did Spanish wines begin to move, hesitantly, into modern times.

When phylloxera destroyed the French vineyards in the 1860s and ’70s, many Bordeaux winemakers moved south. They brought with them their vines, their winemaking skills and the Bordeaux bottle. A century later, in the 1970s and ’80s, Spain decided to join the contemporary viniculture world, and Spanish wines began to improve. Suddenly, wine regions unknown, even within Spain, a few years earlier — the Rioja, of course, and the Penedès region in Catalonia, but also Ribera del Duero, Priorat, Navarra and Toro, and even the Rias Baixas region of Galicia in northwestern Spain — began to capture the attention of wine lovers worldwide.

As late as the 1980s, most Spanish wines were over-sulfured to combat spoilage, not always successfully. Within a decade that practice had ended, even in the cooperatives that still sell inexpensive bulk wine all over Europe.

Grenache, called garnacha in Spain, is the country’s most widely planted grape but hardly its best. That honor goes to tempranillo, the principal grape of the Rioja, the Ribera del Duero, Penedès and Priorat. Vega Sicilia, long considered Spain’s greatest red wine, comes from Ribera del Duero and is made principally from the tinta del país grape and about 20 percent cabernet sauvignon. Tinta del país was once thought to be a separate variety; today it is known to be tempranillo.

While Vega Sicilia has maintained the standard it set in the mid-19th century, it now has some serious competition. For several decades, Priorat, which is part of the Penedès, has been producing wines the envy of winemakers everywhere. Wines from Alvaro Palacios and the Clos Erasmus, to name two producers, are the equal of anything Bordeaux or Burgundy can produce. In the Ribera del Duero, Peter Sissek at the Dominio de Pingus has produced intense red wines that go for $400 a bottle and more. At the other end of the price scale, Marques de Caceres Rioja is under $10; Torres Gran Coronas Reserva is under $20.

Sherry, still Spain’s best-known wine, is made from palomino and Pedro Ximénez grapes.

Recently, the country’s once embarrassing white table wines have taken on a new life. The reasons: the Rias Baixas region, along with a once little-known grape, the albariño. The wine is dry, fruity and fresh, with lively acidity.

And then there is Cava, Spain’s widely popular sparkling wine, made mostly from the parellada grape, along with macabeo, riesling and muscat. The best known labels include Cordoniu, Freixenet and Juvé y Camps. Freixenet Cordon Negro Brut is about $8. — Frank Prial, Jan. 3, 2008

Between the blooms of mid-April and the usual summer sweatbox, a narrow window opens for outdoor dining in New York. These moments call for a crisp, lively white wine -- one like albariño, from the tiny Rías Baixas region of Galicia in northwestern Spain.

It happens all the time. You read something exciting about Spanish wine, you proceed to your local shop, look over the selections and then wimp out and pick up something from California. Or France. Or Italy.

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